Telephones (2)

In the days before every child received a mobile phone as soon as it babbled its first words it was possible to maintain some control over phone calls made, though not received, by the young adults in our families. It’s true that such ‘control’ might sometimes consist of an unseemly screaming match between mother and daughter involving a lot of misunderstanding – ‘You don’t understand, I need to call her’ – and much flouncing out of rooms, thundering of feet on stairs and slamming of doors (or was that just in my house?)

Teenagers have an urgent need to communicate – not with their parents, heaven forfend! Mumbling suffices for most responses – ‘Yes, no, maybe, if you like, I did, I didn’t, goodnight, hello, goodbye’ are all covered with one grunt. No, they have a desperate desire to maintain contact with their peers. No matter that they have just parted outside the house after spending all day together, it is imperative that they call each other as soon as they have entered their respective homes and thrown their school bags on the floor.

Hours of garbled conversations follow and it’s no use eavesdropping in the hope of gleaning any information. What you hear bears little resemblance to English as you speak it.

Well, that’s the way it was, anyway. Long ago, we had just one telephone in our house, a good, old-fashioned rotary dial beast that was solid and reliable and in constant use. In vain did I plead with my children to use the phone when rates were cheaper but the prospect of having to wait a couple of hours before they could engage with their friends was intolerable. Finally, I hit on the solution. I bought a telephone lock! One daughter was so disgusted that she stormed out of the house to a public phone box. I was delighted that at last I had regained some power.

My husband was working abroad quite frequently during those teenage years (‘Was that deliberate?’ I ask myself now) I was also out of the house all day, working. One day he returned from a business trip and needed to make an important phone call. He was not happy to find the telephone locked. He managed to wrench the lock off the phone and when I arrived home I was left in no doubt that a replacement device was not to be purchased.

The young people in my house were only too happy with that directive!

Telephones (1)

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Do you remember when making a phone call on a land line to another country would take hours to connect? Sometimes, calls had to be booked in advance. More often than not there would be an off-putting echo or feedback which made conversation rather difficult. Telephone operators would ‘put you through’ or ask you to ‘please hold the line while I connect you.’

Those days are past for the majority of the modern world. Land line connection is automatic and swift and our callers sound as though they’re in the same room. Home phones are super-smart and come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours and if we wish we can call from room to room through an interconnected network. Phones may have big buttons for callers with dexterity problems or be specially adapted for people who have hearing loss or failing sight. Answerphones are integral and there are phones which are connected to fax machines – no problem is unsolvable.

 

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

For those who wish to relive the past, reproduction ‘candlestick’ phones are a pleasant reminder of more genteel times, when a number would be preceded by the name of the exchange – the most memorable perhaps being ‘Whitehall 1212’, the number of the Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard, a Victorian Gothic building on Victoria Embankment.

The irony of New Scotland Yard was that it was being built in October 1888 on a site containing the torso of a murdered woman. Other remains - a right arm and shoulder and a left leg - were found in two further locations, but the head and the rest of the limbs were never recovered. Newspapers suggested a link to Jack the Ripper, the serial killer who was murdering prostitutes during this period but the police said there was no connection. The murder was never solved.

Before the advent of the push button keypads of modern telephones, numbers were obtained by turning a dial. By listening carefully one could discern which number was being dialled. 1 had no letter and took a short time to return to its position. 0 was the furthest away and carried the letters O and Q. 9 was next to 0, easy to find and having the letters W, X and Y. 999 was and still is the number for instant connection to the emergency services of Police, Fire Brigade and Ambulance and, in some areas, Coastguard, Mountain or Cave Rescue.

I like modern phones – they’re neat, compact, easy to use – but I was sad to see the rotary dial phones disappear from common use.

Microfiction Monday #17

Thanks go to Susan at 'Stony River' for organising and hosting Microfiction Monday. Each week she posts a picture and the challenge is to compose a story in 140 characters.

‘I don’t mind answering the phone but please could you ask your friend to check who she’s speaking to before she embarks on telephone sex.'